Ghosts of the Federation
*~^~*~^~*
The sun was heavy on his back as he crouched behind the rock, perched high above the desert. Light moved, and he narrowed his eyes it, squinting, wishing he could see more clearly, then slapped his head.
"Idiot," he muttered, and almost lost his balance pulling his zoom lenses from his belt. He dialed the range up, and saw them, advancing in slow order, not attempting to hide.
Vin?
Yeah?
The cybe's tone carried a hint of, 'what is it this time?', and JD threw back his shoulders, despite the fact that no one could see him. Got movement on sectors D and F...
I see it. Vin's thread came back with barely a hesitation, and JD sighed. Maybe he shouldn't have bothered, Vin probably knew it all already. Thanks. Tanner out.
"And don't bug me again until you've got something worth saying," he muttered to himself. He ramped the lenses up higher, moving in closer. They seemed to be in vehicles, in some sort of formation.
And they were about to go right into the first trap.
JD grinned happily, and squirmed a little closer to the edge of the cliff. A little closer... a little closer... The lead vehicle was almost over the target square...
There! The action went with the thought, hitting the initiation order faster than he'd ever made it in the arenas, and he saw the plume of dust and the flying specks of black before the sound reached him. "Hah!"
One down!
I saw, Vin said mildly, and JD tried to tone down the sheer glee he was feeling, and no doubt, transmitting.
He leaned forward, watching fiercely, waiting for the dust and sand to clear, ready to trip the next improvised landmine. Instead there was a second detonation, and then a succession of dull booms, and he counted them -- five, six, seven, all of them? Not -- nine, ten, eleven. Aw shit..
I'm coming down, he told Vin, not asking. He'd taken this post because he'd been given it. He suspected he'd been given it because it made Larabee happy that he wasn't about to get himself -- and therefore Larabee's access to Buck-- killed. But if there was nothing up here he could do except watch the mines Joche's people had spent careful hours setting go up in smoke, then he might as well get back down to the real action.
He grinned happily, checked his weapons (lit, ready, locked so they wouldn't go off unexpectedly) and slid down slow and easy. The grey of his uniform blended well enough in the pale rock and sand, as long as he stayed low and didn't do anything -- oh shit! His foot shot out from under him, and he fell a good ten yards down the steep path, finally fetching up hard against a huge boulder. He gasped for air, pain pulling from every part of him, unbearably relieved that the falling had stopped.
Move!
He jerked into action, obeying the edge in Vin's voice without a second's hesitation. He scrambled, half on his feet, half on hands and knees, too desperate to get out of the way to worry about getting up. A dip between a trio of boulders caught his eye and he instantly sheered off for it, heart pounding, the world blurring until the only thing he could see was the sand and scattering of rock grasses lurking in the dim hollow. He sank into the cover provided by the biggest boulder, then huddled down deeper, wedging himself into the small space between, either safe or trapped and not sure which it was going to be. What had Vin seen? How long had it been? A time check told him mere seconds -- only three or four, even though it had seemed far, far longer, and he leaned his back against the cool stone, looking up into the pale sky framed by rocks. Something flashed past, not ten feet above his head, and he stopped breathing, waiting. A round, metallic object bounced off the rock face, rolled rattling down the path grenade and onto the spot he'd landed not three seconds before.
He stared at it, maybe three meters away, nothing between them --
"Fuck!"
-- and he moved faster than he knew was possible, hurling himself up out of his hidey hole, scrambling up and over, desperate to put as much hard, thick rock between him and the grenade as possible. He fell, lurched on, dragging himself rather than stopping moving, his torn knees, shredded hands and aching ribs suddenly of no importance whatsoever as the grenade blew. His eyes shut tight, but he was still getting away, and now he was on his feet, tight in to the cliff face, hidden by the overhang and the clouds of dust, his eyes shut, one hand on the wall to keep himself oriented, testing each step blindly before putting his weight on it incase the next one turned out to be the end of the path.
He wiped at his face, bringing away wetness. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, stinging his skin. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear then of sand and dust.
The rain of fragments stopped. He kept moving, stumbling on, his eyes on his feet, glancing up at the sky every few seconds. Were they going to fire again? How long had it been?
A rattle of stones on stones; something disturbed by the grenade rolled off the side of the path and bounced and echoed for a very long time.
He stopped, pressing himself back into the cliff face, hoping he was hidden well enough for now, deep in shadows. The sounds fell away until all he could hear was his own breath rasping through his open mouth. One by one his cuts and bruises started throbbing with his heart beat, raw, aching, stinging. Alive.
Seconds became minutes. The sound of his heart beat dwindled in his ears, and his breathing slowed to something like normal. He was okay. Nothing serious. He was okay.
...Come in, JD. JD? Come on, kid, talk to me--
He shifted slowly, creeping carefully back onto the path, keeping crouched close to the ground, close to cover. He was probably leaving a blood trail, he knew, but it couldn't be helped. He swiped a drip out of his face, and glanced at his smeared hand, uncertain whether the blood was from his head or from the cuts and scratches on his hand.
It didn't matter.
JD! JD, answer me! Jeshu dammit, if you don't answer in the next minute I'm gonna---- Vin sounded impatient, angry, like he'd been calling for a while and JD had only just noticed. He'd've noticed if he'd heard him sooner, right?
Hey, Vin,, he whispered, vaguely pleased that someone had noticed he was missing.
No words came through, instead something stronger, like the rush when your team won in the arena -- you weren't supposed to be able to go deeper than direct thought speech, but when it was strong enough...
Thanks, man, he mumbled.
You okay?
Yeah, I'm good. He just needed a power up and he'd be fine. He shook his head. No, that was wrong, that was for games. This was for real, not just bio-feedback off the Arena. He stared at the trickle of red running down between his knuckles, and then licked at it thoughtfully. Huh. He liked the games better.
He shook his head again, sharply, but the fuzziness didn't go. He put a hand to the back of his neck and gingerly felt at the chipset seated in his 'port. They weren't all straight, and he gently eased them back into place, and the world came sharply back.
I'm fine, he said again, his head clearing rapidly. Nanite activity rising, he noted absently. Silver striations were coagulating over the worse cuts, and he grimaced. Well, they should be gone by the time he ran into anyone. I'll be in touch.
Distant agreement, and then silence in his head. He drew a deep breath, and started moving again, slower this time, taking more care to stay out of sight. He still had a job to do.
*~ *~ *
"How many down?"
"Four; two seriously injured, two dead," Ngede said. But Apman wasn't going to care about that, he knew. He didn't even bother enumerating the details -- Gani was down. Niel was going to need regen before he walked again. And Glau and Bann were past repair. They couldn't keep this level of attrition up.
"For?"
"We believe we have five kills. Sir." Only two were sufficiently certain that he'd stake his life on them being dead. The others -- well, maybe, maybe not, but he'd rather guesstimate up and be wrong than have this lunatic turning trigger happy hands on his own people again. On his military commander. Again.
Apman pursed his lips. He'd lost weight rapidly these last few weeks and the folds lined his face unpleasantly. "Unacceptable. Get out there and eliminate the lot of them. Filthy rotorats."
"Sir?" Ngede was politely non-committal. "The plan was to extract maximum value--" he stopped at Apman's glare.
"I don't care any more. No. Kill them all; destroy the mountain. Wipe them from the face of the planet." His hand chopped graphically, and Ngede looked at him, his tanned face unreadable.
"Yes, sir." He paused, rapidly weighing his options. He had to say something, he just -- he made sure his shield was up again: power drain or not, he was taking no chances. "We are down to seventeen combat-able crew, sir. I'd like to recommend that we withdraw and regroup. We can obtain further support from--"
"Shut up!" Apman slammed a gun filled hand across Ngede's jaw, it skittered over the shield, close enough to his face to make him jerk back.
"Sir, I would recommend--"
"You can't use that damn thing all the time! I replaced her. I can replace you! Get out and do your job you fucking coward!"!"
Ngede watched him, face carefully impassive. A coward would just agree with you and leave, he thought, watching Apman's face suffuse with anger. "We will need reinforcements if we are to get through. If you want anyone left alive at the end that is."
Apman looked at him like he'd lost his mind, "If they're all dead there's no profit to be had, you idiot!"
"Yes, sir." I'll just ignore every alternate order you give then, shall I?
Apman looked slyly at him. "Besides. I have reinforcements coming. They should be here soon."
"Sir?"
Apman smirked. "Need to know, Commander. And you don't. Not yet."
Not Guild then. He'd've heard before Apman. Besides, if anyone at Guild was willing to come out here they'd either been lied to about the profits, or lied to about the casualties. Most likely both. So who the hell had Apman recruited? Free mercs? People too mean to join the Guild, or too dangerous to be accepted in. Not the Feds. More clan? But Hou was licking its wounds still, that was the whole point of Apman's stupid exercise. Who else was left?
"Yes, sir," he said, and took a step back. "Do I have your permission to take any measures necessary to make advances against the enemy?"
"Yes, of course, you idiot!" Apman snapped. "Just go and do as you're told."
"As you wish, sir," he murmured, and took the last step backwards to let himself out of the tent, never taking his eyes off of Apman for a second. Do as you're told seemed a remarkably fluid sort of arrangement, considering the contradictory orders he'd been given. He walked back to ops, giving serious consideration to invoking the emergency break clause. The Guild wouldn't fault him. Not with Frances dead by Apman's own hand.
"At ease," he said as conversation stopped when he walked in. "What've we got?"
"You know everything we do, Cap."
Ngede nodded his thanks. Nothing more. He stared at the tac screen for a long moment then shook his head. "They've got the high ground."
Tallis grinned at him, "But they haven't got the best team of mercs the Guild has fielded in twenty years, eh boys?" His sidelong glance at Ngede gave away his anxiety, but Ngede appreciated the effort.
"We got numbers?"
Ops shrugged. "No fucking clue. We're getting zero intel out of there. Black as a priest's heart."
"We've cleared the remaining mines," Halloran said, appearing at his other shoulder, staring at the tac screen too. Ngede nodded, and there was an uncomfortable pause. Someone -- and it was easy to blame the dead -- hadn't checked the ground before walking across it. And that was just the basic stuff, the things that had been laid as a first line of defense. They probably wouldn't even have killed anyone, not battle cybes, if they hadn't been in a vehicles that flipped and pinned them.
"Sorenson and McKenna are making headway here," Tallis added before the pause got any longer, and tapped the screen. The four teams, two per team, were approaching from irregular angles to the cybe base. There had been six teams.
They were all going to end up dead.
He absently noted that he needed to make sure that Apman died too, if they didn't make it. Although, maybe the enemy could be relied on for that. After all, they were sane.
*~ *~ *
They waited in the shadows by the foot of the mountain. Larabee's hands hung loosely by his sides. Every now and again his fingers would roll up into a fist, clench for a second, and then stretch out again. Vin saw only from the corner of his eye, and was oddly relieved to see some normal sign of battle nerves. He'd wondered if the priest had any really human feelings left at all. Chris's obsession with the Buck-avatar wasn't exactly the welcome in the hills Vin would have been looking for from a three year missing husband.
The kid better be okay.
Movement caught his eye, and he focused in, squinting to get a better look. His eyebrows flicked up in surprise. It was a smaller group than he'd expected. Maybe the mine had taken out more than he'd hoped.
"You got something?"
"Three coming up on F. Guess they think with that mine out, it's a safe path through." He grinned, and dropped to one knee, leaning forwards out of the shadows of the overlooking hill. "Got three more on B or C, I reckon."
Chris looked absent for a moment, then nodded once. "Josiah says they can see 'em."
Vin kept his eyes on the landscape and his gun sight, and hoped that his distaste didn't come through too obviously.
He shifted the tangle rifle in his arms, settling the stock more firmly in his shoulder, letting the automatic sighting take control of his eyes, until it seemed as though he was staring straight down the barrel, distantly aware of the overlay of reality, about six inches left and up, letting it go, ignoring the Doppler effect, letting visual processing revert to the most basic motion detection. If anything moved, he'd shoot it before he saw it.
One, two -- the third one turned, fired, and he shot twice more, catching first the missile -- another rattle grenade -- and then the cybe who'd launched it.
"Not bad," Larabee said at his shoulder, and Vin looked at him then smiled tightly.
"Sorry to spoil your fun," he said lightly, and Chris's teeth flashed in a smile that looked genuinely amused.
"I'll get a chance later." He turned back to watching the approaches to their vantage point -- from the right and from above were the only real options.
Vin nodded, and focused back on the area before him.
The next attack came from above. Vin was only half turned at the sound of a stone clattering before he felt the heat of Larabee's Church issued weapons searing the air. The oxygen burnt out as the flame scorched upwards and then collapsed into itself, a cloud and a faint vapor trail were the only signs that a second ago there was a human being thirty meters away from them. A breeze from the inrushing air soon cleared even that.
"Guess they got the problems with those things fixed," he said mildly. Last time he'd seen one of them in action it had burned the tester's hand off. Matter of twelve years or so though, so it was understandable they'd got better.
Larabee tipped his hat back and squinted up into the clear blue sky. "Guess so."
Vin settled back into position. Let them come in a little further… Get well out of their safe fallback zone before he took any action. He waited. he could wait for hours. Absently he checked on the others, looping through to the command post.
Zhou Yu? he asked.
Garen, sorry, Zhou Yu's busy. Any news?
We've been under fire. Holding position. You?
Got teams working in from five points we think; small infiltration. Fire up high.
Got two out on F, JD called one on B as well.
Yeah, he said. Took some fire, but he's fine.
Vin nodded even though he knew already. Anyone else?
We're three down.
Who? he asked quickly.
Maviss, Thom, Strek, Garen said tersely. Vin dipped his head briefly. He remembered most of them from his time living with the cybes at Hugo, back when he first got to Tianya. He'd been too wary to make any friends, had left too quickly to feel more than a kind of passing regret; they were his kind, they'd done something good, and now they were dead.
Injuries?
None reported. Which meant nothing, he knew, and Vin focused back on the here and now, watching the field.
Idea on their strategy?
We're still trying to figure it out.
Vin shook his head in resignation. Call me when you're done.
I'll do that. Garen sounded like all Vin's commanders ever had -- sarcastic and off balance. Vin smiled happily to himself. Free cyborg here. No more jumping to orders.
"Well?" Larabee growled, and he looked back over his shoulder at him.
"Nothing."
"Gou shi."
Vin's smile widened. "Nothing worth knowing. Couple of ours down; couple of theirs down, everyone else is fine."
Larabee grunted in answer. "Sanchez says they've got more pairs creeping up on their backs."
Vin nodded, relayed it back. Garen didn't seem grateful.
"You going to do something about them?"
Vin shrugged. He wasn't in any hurry to give up their position -- if Larabee's last shot hadn't given it away already.
"Wonder how much more ammo they have," he said idly, eyes still fixed on the small targets in the distance. He could make the shot, but he might not make it twice. And leaving one alive wasn't any good. Although, given the choice between one or two alive, he'd take the one.
Maybe he should kill the first one now. He'd probably make the other shot.
It would be tricky. He settled in closer, distantly appreciative that Larabee had stopped talking.
There. He brushed at the trigger with his mind, and then shifted the targeting lock fractionally, fired again.
A small smile pulled at his lips as he saw the two of them crumple to the ground within split seconds of each other.
"Took you long enough," was all Larabee said.
He called in the double kill.
Great, he got Zhou Yu this time, who sounded coolly appreciative. It was a nice change, all things considered. Pull back, she ordered, and Vin shook his head, disagreeing before she even finished speaking.
"What?" Larabee asked.
"They want us to go back up into the base."
"Find you a better sniper position," Larabee said mildly. Vin blinked. It didn't quite mesh with his idea of a priest, to have the man suggesting a better way to kill… on second thoughts, it was just like the Church.
"I can do more damage here."
Maybe so, Zhou Yu said sharply, but they're doing damage up here. We've got a second line coming in from topside.
What? Vin looked up, a second later, Larabee was looking up too, as a small, sleek gun ship, no more than a six man carrier, shot noiselessly overhead, missiles streaking away. It took nearly thirty seconds before the crack of the sonic boom followed it. The sound merged with the sound and shake of missiles hitting the mountain. Fuck!
They looked at each other, cold recognition in both their eyes. Without a word, they both turned, and headed back up the mountain.
Garen? Zhou Yu? Anyone? There was no reply. Maybe comms were out. Vin gritted his teeth, not thinking about the others who'd been outside on the mountain.
Anyone who's listening, we're heading up.
Let there be someone left to hear them.
*~ *~ *
"Screw this," Nathan muttered as the world shuddered distantly above them, and rose to his full height. He needed to be out there.
"Doctor?"
"Don't keep me here. I can fight. You need everyone they can get." He couldn't stay hear, listening to the world falling apart around them. The last blows had felt like the mountain was falling down around their ears.
"We need a medical man--"
"Where?" He gestured violently at the makeshift infirmary, filled with pallets and children, not an injury among them. "No one here's hurt. What good is a medical man buried under a million ton of rock, woman?"
Mareen looked away, "Don't," she whispered, and he tried to remember that she was only a girl, maybe not even out of her teens, certainly no more than early twenties for all her poise and confidence with the children.
"I need to be out there. Triage, helping who I can right on the spot, fighting --whatever is needed. You need every body you can get with a gun in each hand." He scowled and added more quietly, "And I have a bone to pick with anyone out of Apman."
Apman, who'd been one of the lead clans in the Hou Corp, back on Borealis... Didn't seem much like they'd changed in the five years since he'd been 'liberated' by DeeGee Four-Ten and the Feds. Liberated. Free to starve; free to sit out on the squit end of nowhere and do a job that an AI would've looked down its nose at. He'd gone from a respected job and a safe home to being a refugee, waiting for the day he could put a bad turn the way of them who'd fucked his life over. And them, the ones who'd been responsible for it all, they'd never suffered, gone hungry, been considered unemployable or unsafe, or unclean. Nothing changed.
Mareen looked up at him, silver grey eyes steady for all they were young. "They're only kids," she said. "Someone has to stay with them. They'll die on their own." It was his turn to shrug.
"You're doing fine." He gestured around the room, the children were quiet and orderly, safe as possible given the situation.
"And if they get this far? What then? Just me and the children to fight off Guild mercs?"
"What good can I do here? I could do more good out there making sure the others are fit to protect you."
She looked away. "Go on then," she said softly, and he flinched at the disappointment in her tone. "Leave us be."
Contrarily, he didn't want to. He wanted to stay. Small faces were watching them without understanding; the older ones looked resigned, bitter. Sure that a norm was going to walk away from them and leave them to die. He wasn't -- they'd live longer if he helped their protectors, couldn't they see that?
He'd already taken a step towards the door, when he heard her say, as though she didn't expect him to hear or answer, "Who are you going out there to save, Doctor Jackson? Us? Or you?"
"I can do more good out there--" he said again, uncertain. "I should be--" I should be what? he wondered. Avenging old scars? Killing more cyborgs? Was killing them better than saving them?
He stopped, cold to the core. Was that it? Would he rather be out there killing them than trapped in here, in danger of helping cyborgs to live? Even cyborg children. He looked at the clustered kids; Mareen's young-old face. Was that --
The hurt on JD's face when he'd backed away from the kid when he realized he was carrying cybe-based nanites flashed momentarily before his eyes. He'd even lied rather than have to touch him.
Was that really him? He'd been so proud once, that he would treat without thought for free or slave, human or cybe; no matter what Hou Corp had said, he was better than they were...
He was better than that.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, not turning around. He glared at the doorway as though it had been his target all along, "Maybe we better build some better defenses than what we got, though."
The girl smiled at him, and he smiled back, abruptly only seeing the pleased approval, only her, letting the grey alu-glass pooled in hollows and joints fade away.
They stood like that for a second too long, and then Nathan squared his shoulders. "So. How many of them are big enough to be trusted with moving things?" he looked inquisitively at her, and her head went up, standing taller.
"All of them," she looked at the children with pride and conviction in her face. "If they're big enough to understand, they're big enough to help do something,, even if it's just make sure the very tiniest stay put."
His smile stretched wider. "Good. Good. You know this place -- how can we barricade up?"
She tapped a fingernail twice on the table, and after a momentary flicker it responded with a map of the level they were hidden in. "We're here." She picked out a point about halfway around the circle. "There were entry points here, and here, but those have been blown. There's a trap door up to the next level over here," she indicated a point a good distance from the door to the infirmary, "and the stairs are still open right here." She touched the point on the map, and pointed behind her to a door that he'd barely noticed. "There's two levels down, but they're trapped up, and blocked off."
"We don't have a way out?" he asked.
Mareen shook her head grimly.
"Okay." He looked at the map again. "What do you recommend?"
*~ *~ *
JD clung to the side of the mountain, torn between awe and horror. A V813 soaring overhead... He could recite without once checking his bases its tonnage, complement, weapons load. Had flown them in arena games -- they'd told him he wasn't cybe enough to make it into pilot training, but in the games it hadn't mattered, and she flew so, so sweet. Sleek, gleaming, faster than the human eye could follow --
and then there was the way she was bombing the crap out of everything in her path, a string of dots trailing a long parabola behind her under gravity's demand and
-- the mountain shook. A huge boom exploding through everything, him, his bones, the floor jolting beneath his feet, flinching away from him for a fraction of a second before pushing up and rocking him off balance.
He dropped to one knee, arms over his head as debris showered down over him. He was on the wrong side to get a direct hit -- it looked like she'd gone all out for the main entrance -- but that was no reason to hang around. Depending on the payload she could fell a mountain.
He breathed in, and waited, holding his breath as his nanites swarmed, testing the air. He could wait about a minute, and tried to, carefully not focusing on the weird lump in his throat. It faded after a bare ten seconds though, and let him breathe deep, easy; no rasp to suggest an emergency filter. It smelled clean, no gas, no viral load. The dust didn't carry foreign nanites. None of his tags were lighting up for radiological hazards. And, the best clue that she wasn't using her planet killers -- he was still standing.
Just in time he thought to clap his hands over his ears. The double crack of the sonic boom was tangible, jolting his skin as it carpeted the V813's back path. He had a minute, maybe two before she swept back over. If they were lucky, the pilot would wait to fire until he was facing the target. If they weren't...
Two minutes. Maybe three, max. He ran. He needed to be down with the main weapons array, right now. He could do something real with that. He'd taken these fuckers out in the game. He could do this.
If he could just convince them of that.
*~ *~ *
"That's a Church ship, Larabee," Zhou Yu said coldly. "You want to explain what they're doing here?"
Chris's face was just as chill. "You want to know what they're doing here, ask 'em. I ain't got to justify myself to you--"
"Yes, you do." Her face was tight, skin tight over sharp bones. "How do I know you didn't call them down on us?"
"How could he," Vin said, looking from one to the other uneasily. "Nearest Church base is what, three systems over? Would take weeks for them to get here. They'd've had to leave long before Larabee knew anything."
"Someone knew," she said implacably. "Can't trust psi."
"Apman could have--" one of the others began and stopped when both Zhou Yu and Larabee glared at her.
"Go on," Vin said, half smiling, and she swallowed, began again.
"Apman. He's got Church involvement already, he has to if he's got genuine Guild out there," she gestured vaguely towards the sound of enemy fire. "Why wouldn't they come sniffing around? 'specially if they know about us."
"Oh, they know," Larabee said softly. He looked around, then met Zhou Yu's eyes. "They know."
"Because you told them?"
He laughed under his breath, shook his head. "They don't need me to tell 'em. You think I was the first they sent out here?" He turned and looked at Josiah. "You think I was the first to go rogue on 'em?"
"You--" weapons were up everywhere, and Larabee just grinned, like a death's head, eyes narrowed, teeth bared.
"They don't know where I am. They don't know where Josiah is. They don't care. But they sure as fuck knew that someone was siphoning off cybes; getting them free." He looked at Vin squarely. "You really think that Church bounty was just going to fade away?"
Vin shook his head, smiled faintly. "Done all right so far."
"Travis."
Vin didn't know who said it, and Zhou Yu shook her head sharply.
"He's the only one who--"
"No one's beyond question," Larabee snapped out, and Vin shook his head. Not Travis.
"He's clean." He hesitated. "He got me out here. Did all this." He shrugged a shoulder at the mountain, meaning the freedom, not the battle.
"Tanner--"
"Runs a bunch of escaped church cybes out every now and again, not too often, don't want the Church figuring it--" Vin stopped, horror dawning as Chris shook his head slowly, never once breaking eye contact with him.
Chris jerked his chin sideways, as though to say, clever boy, and Vin felt like his mouth was dry. Someone whispered, "They know?" And Vin had no idea if it was voice or thread, him or someone else, but it didn't matter, he wasn't going ever back, none of them were --
He could feel the panic underneath.
"It doesn't matter. Trust me," Chris said, "I have every intention of making sure they don't succeed."
"Why should we trust you, priest?" someone yelled, and Chris shrugged.
"Because he's lost as much from them as any of you," Josiah's voice rumbled through the growing discontent and anger. "Wife, husband, child -- all gone."
Vin saw Larabee freeze in his tracks.
"What do you--"
"He's a priest!"
"Cut his throat and throw him out the door--"
"Idiots! They're listening through his head right now! Knock him out, kill him!"
"The old fool's a priest too -- of course he'd speak for him!"
Josiah and Chris were facing the crowd, Vin could see minute tremors drifting through Chris's back as he held himself away from any action.
"I speak for him." He stepped forward, in front of them, between the priests and the crowd.
"Me too!" JD was gasping for air as he skidded up to join them. "Like they're going to care," he added, "but for what it's worth, federal, and Travis --"
"Travis what?"
JD tried to steady his breathing, "Travis wouldn't want this."
"He doesn't have to know," someone called from the back, and JD swallowed visibly, then stood up straight.
"I'd know."
"Killing Federale Dunne would seem rather counterproductive when the Federation appear to be your allies. Your only allies," Ezra added reflectively, ambling forward and coincidentally, it seemed, finishing up also between the mob and the priests. "But as you please," he stepped to one side, waving them through grandly. "At least we won't have to worry about who's going to go first when the feds and church start fighting over the remains."
"It doesn't matter," JD said looking frantic, then again, more loudly, "You idiots, it doesn't matter!" and everyone stared at him, and he flushed brightly, and stood his ground, "We need to get rid of the damn ship. Not fight about whose fault it is!"
There was a pause that seemed to last forever, and then the mob was scattering. Ezra said, "With me, son," and gripped JD's elbow, dragging him to the weapons array.
"Can you--"
"Yes! Ez, get the--"
And they were getting into position, battle tech and tech seer, the weapons array shifting around them, closing up over them, half concealed behind a smoky bubble. Panels lit, and Vin watched JD settling in place. He reached to his neck, pushed at something, then leaned back into the weapons base, plugging directly through the neural interface. JD's face contorted for a moment then went blank, mind no longer registering anything except the war inputs.
Luck, kid, he said. He'd need it. One kid and a cannon against Church shipguns? Madness.
I can do it, I can do it he heard JD whispering, and whispered back, you can, yeah, and the thread pulled at him. For a split second he was high on the mountainside, watching through a hundred mechanical eyes as the V813 streaked towards them, outrunning its own sound trail, and then there was a glittering arc of fire --
....target acquired
--and a trail of debris searing through the sky, tumbling steeply.
I knew I could do it"!
"Second target on inbound course!" Ezra was up to his wrists in the weapons, hands moving among the fine filaments like hair in water, tangling, clinging, "acquiring--"
Have it, JD sounded distant.
"Third target -- and the mother is coming in on geosync -- she's matching to geosync on line of sight."
I don't have -- anything -- that ----
Fire poured out again, "Target three destroyed, fuck, fuck, trajectory gone ballistic for the mountain--"
"Shields can take it," someone else called swiftly, and they waited, JD's voice still threading through targeting, ranging, firing. Debris spattered on the shields, and Vin watched for a moment, then turned away. Rain was prettier.
High orbital target one is out of range ----
"I have three more inbound, and two more mothers. Third mother registers as," and Standish looked up, a tight little smile, and Vin was half afraid of what he'd have to say, "Federation ident, ladies and gentlemen, I'm reading the Pentecost--" he was still speaking but it was lost under the cries of "yes!" and "Oh, Jeshu, Jeshu," and "Travis! Travis!" as though the Axe was some sort of god in a crudely thrown together pantheon.
"Captain Friedricks requests Zhou Yu and Joche Mendeleyev in conference," Louie confirmed, a huge grin on his face as he looked up from the comms bench.
Joche pushed through, "I'll take it here, Louie. I think my daughter is a little busy at the moment." Louie nodded him to a corner of the bench, and Joche pressed his hand into the private interface.
"People, we need you at your positions, not cluttering the place up in here," Zhou Yu said sharply, mostly everyone was already moving away from the scene of the confrontation. She waited until the crowd had dissipated, and said softly, "Don't make a liar of your friends, Larabee."
There was no need for 'or else'.
Vin waited a moment, but no one seemed to feel the need to say more.
"Tanner, we've got a gap on the north face, now. If you and your priest want to help--"
He nodded. Never mind that the breach was because of the first V813. JD had taken it down, would take the rest down. "Got any extra recharge?" he asked, eying the power bar on his rifle. Zhou Yu shook her head once.
"All going on the cannon and the shield," she said quietly, and Vin nodded. It was only a matter of time in that case. Without power, they would be dead far too soon. He didn't ask.
He checked inventory -- he still had a couple of batteries to slap in. Should see him alive to the end of the day. Assuming the bombs and mercenaries didn't get him.
"Guess I'll be seeing you," he said, and glanced at Chris. Chris was waiting silently at the passage up to the outside of the north side of the mountain. They'd walked it the night before. He'd been looking forward to the battle then, tired, but ready to move.
Now, the passageway was dusty, unstable underfoot, stone twisting and sliding as they edged up towards the place where there had once been an airlock.
*~ *~ *
Ezra was sweating like a pig. It was disgusting. "Easy, son," he murmured, and JD's head moved slightly.
I got it. JD's thoughts were blandly mechanical, translated from neural impulse to words by machinery. It didn't sound like him at all.
He'd thought he was good at this -- and for a barely enhanced human, he was, incredibly good. The Church and Hou Corp had seen to that. There were only the quick and the dead left after what happened on Borealis. He would expect a cybe to be better, but this kid wasn't -- didn't look like -- a cybe. He was something else again to watch though. Distantly his mind turned over the thought of a cybe that didn't look like a cybe...
He half wished he could see into the virtual war room that he was sure JD had constructed. It would be more spacious than the dim, close area enclosed by the forcefield. They were probably in the safest place on the mountain. Of course, if the Church scored a direct hit on any part of the array, they'd be obliterated by backwash -- but only them. The shield wouldn't buckle from the inside any more than it would from the outside. A trap as much as a shield.
The fed couldn't do all of it, though, and the cybes didn't have a full fledged battlecomp to take the burden up, so here he was on tac again, wondering how he ended up in these positions.
He watched the tac screen numbers flare, data pouring in bright streams across the board. That one -- he moved a hand fractionally and it bumped up into the foreground, "Another one JD, 23Y 19Z."
Got--
"JD?"
The data streams coalesced, thin lines of information banding into thick bars, then broke apart again. "Here." He dragged another one out.
I see--
The bands moved, shifting in response to JD's shot, "Nearly," he said, "watch that Z axis."
Got -- got it--
And he did, two of the ships blew into pieces in quick succession, and Ezra grinned momentarily. "Good for you, now, let's see what we can do about those orbitals."
Yeah?
"Oh yeah." Ezra grinned. JD might have technology dancing to his tune, but Ezra ha'Standish had more than a couple of cards to play in that game yet.
*~ *~ *
The passage forked, and they paused. The upper passage was lighter, somewhere up ahead the bombardment had broken straight through. Down was dark and silent. Down was where the non-combatants had been sent. He gestured towards Tanner and then towards the upper route. He'd go down. Tanner should head up. He could do more damage short range if anyone had made it through the gap. Tanner and his tangle rifle had the range, might be able to do some damage to anything overflying the gap in the shields that must be up there now.
Vin nodded, and Chris turned away without glancing back.
He moved soundlessly through the dark, blinking slowly until his eyes adjusted. Stones clattered underfoot as he walked, rolling his feet as the ground shifted and twisted under him. He kept to the walls, it wasn't cover, but it would do. He pushed gently, looking for anomalies in the silence. A nearby mind moved sluggishly, and he pulled away. It was close to death, not safe to follow it, not worth finding it, not when there might be others who could be saved. He kept moving. A hundred yards down the corridor he stumbled over something soft, and caught himself on the wall. Just a lower leg, sticking out of rubble, the rest of the body hidden under the fallen wall.
If he were a different man, if he were who he had once been, then maybe -- He stared at the floor, waiting until the mind behind it faded out of all reach. He crouched for a second, "I'm sorry," he whispered, touching a hand lightly to the corpse's ankle, then stepped past it. More bodies ahead, none alive. In the distance the buzz of the non-combatants tugged at the edges of his mind. They didn't feel quite like cybes; maybe it was because they were younger. He shoved the thought away. These weren't children. Not real children, like --
He rolled the glass splinter between his fingers. A new habit. Better than oblivion, he thought dryly, Buck would approve. Rubbing Buck, running him through his -- no.
He wondered if they'd be able to put him into a virtual environment with Buck, let him live out his life there instead of just tasting and leaving, tasting and leaving, both bitter on the tongue. It hit him like a blow to the gut, leaving him breathless, that he would be able to touch him, feel him, fuck him, hold him. Almost real. Better than a dream; more than a memory. He stamped it down hard. He'd ask the kid. Later. Maybe.
The moment vanished as he felt two minds ahead, fully awake, fully aware, angry, calculating with the odd disjointed shift that warned of not-quite-human. Little gaps in the mind where the interfaces ran through machine instead of brain and disappeared for fractions of seconds from his sense. He reached out a little, smiled. See, there are worse things than being set on your own kind, he thought cruelly, and pushed. It was hard. They resisted for longer than he'd expected, and it was so difficult, so difficult to remember to just squeeze gently, breaking the shell, not the yolk.
One fell first, and he let her tumble free. It was easier with just one and that one fell too, tumbling into sleep easily. Better than codes and keys, they'd told him back in training. They were right.
He moved quickly, and crouched over the two bodies sprawled limp and silent on the floor. This was what they'd trained him for. Both were in camo suits, blending almost into the background. If he'd been merely human, he'd never have seen them. He took their weapons, emptied their pockets. He could do more, and for a moment he itched to reach deeper, break them to him, shatter their minds, kill them where they lay with never a mark on them. Cyborgs. He clenched his hands, and the glass pricked at his hand. A whisper, less than a thought, only the merest scent of a sound, Chris, and he drove it down, words, sound, scent, rage.
Names. Halloran and Andrews. He considered them, then dragged them bodily, one by one, a little further down the corridor, to where a door hung half off its hinges. He could tie them up, he supposed, but what was the point? If he couldn't deal with this then what good was he.
(You could at least pretend to plan on staying alive, a voice said tartly in his memory, and he grinned over his shoulder at her, red hair short and wisping out of her combat hood. Sir, yes, sir, Major Connelly, sir.)
He didn't flinch. The voices came and went. (Daddy! Daddy! Tell me about when Dadda aksdently shot Mommy!)
"Wake up," he growled. This hurt; burned in his mind. Like live wires running too close to each other, memory arced and spat sparks.
Andrews woke first, feigning unconsciousness until Chris kicked her hip.
"I know you're awake, girl," he said. His voice slid without really meaning to into the cadence of priest-trainer, priest-inquisitor. It might have been a long while since he'd walked with the Church, but that first year had taken hard, burned deep.
"Sir." The mercenary was utterly still: mind; body. Nothing moved. He could feel it, her hate seething, reflexively held in, deep underneath, buried so well that Andrews probably thought she didn't care. Cyborgs always cared about priests. One way or another.
"Who sent you?"
"Guild contract, sir, Clan Apman, underwritten by Hou."
"And Hou is underwritten by the Church," he finished, not quite a statement, a small lift in his voice requiring an answer.
"I don't know, sir." Literally true. Another drawback of mind control. Slippery sort of stuff, and now Halloran was waking up and it would be twice as hard.
"It's okay, Andrews," he shifted, making himself smaller, less menacing, turning his face into the light. Hooded, hidden, hanging over them like a bird of prey he could make them fear him, hell, he could raise fear just by breathing, just by catching an eye, or indulging in a sweeping look. No point. He'd moved half across the galaxy to escape what the Church had tried to make him. Not this way.
(Chris, come home safe -- bring coffee!)
"We can do this easy or hard," he said softly, and smiled at her flinch.
Crazy priest. He knew what she was thinking, didn't know what to do. Couldn't save them -- but they were doing a job that they were trapped and bound to.
Halloran moaned and he hesitated, then told her, "You can see to him."
He could feel her gaze on him, confused and uncertain. He settled his shoulders against the wall, and waited. He trailed his mind outwards again as something shook the mountain, dislodging clinker. Nothing outside but friends.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second. Friends were -- no.
Tanner was moving up high, bird's eye view on the mountain, moving from position to position. He'd clipped the wings of at least one fighter, not killed but pulling up and away, looking for safety. Dunne was sliding deeper into the battlecomp, guided by Standish, and who would have thought that the little cheat had this in him? He'd have made a good priest--
"Sir?"
He waited to answer. No point letting her think that he had control here. "Andrews?"
"Are you-- is--"
Chris waited her stumbling words out. Not long in service then.
"You're what, nineteen?"
"Sir."
She would probably have been given the choice of breed or fight her way out of indenture at her first menses. She knew he was a priest, and he could feel the resignation, the patient expectation of orders.
"How long?"
Ten years, she thought, but only said, "How long, sir?" as though she didn't know what he was asking.
"I left them years ago. Don't lie to me." Her confusion irritated him, and he pulled back. Maybe this -- whatever he could do here wasn't worth it. Too much of what they had made him into and not enough of him.
(You always were a mean son of a bitch, Larabee...)
"You don't get to leave," Halloran; his voice was hopeless, not even trying to pretend that he didn't understand. He thought it was a trap; a double bind. Damned if they agreed, damned if they didn't. Well, maybe that was so. Maybe that was the point.
"Sometimes, you get to leave," he said flatly, and felt a flicker of curiosity. Push, push harder. "You like killing free cybes?"
"I like getting paid."
"There are more important things." But don't think about what they are... don't think.
"Easy for you to say, priest," there it was, said out loud.
He moved, noiselessly, clouding their minds a little so that when he leaned his weight on Halloran's throat, hand across his windpipe, both of them jerked with shock. "You don't know anything, cyborg."
Andrews' breath was fast, a little shaky. Halloran was perfectly still. Training held even as he suffocated.
He leaned in, whispering, crouched close against the cyborg's skin, lips brushing over soft metal and tense flesh. "Don't ever say that again." The cybe managed a fractional twist of his head, no, never burned in his mind, almost louder than the panicked animal need for air.
He increased the pressure for a second, and the mind went out, puffed silent. He lifted away and stood.
"Even if I let you go, you'll just keep on killing," he said distantly, considering options.
"That's what we are."
"That's what you do. There's an difference, girl. If you don't know it, maybe you better start thinking about it." She had no answer to that. Maybe the Church had succeeded in isolating cybes from the rest of the universe except when they sent them out to kill bits of it. The thought made him cold. Maybe he should just kill them. It was tempting. He could do it, here in the dark, just put their light out as though flicking a switch. One wipe of his hand and they would be statistics. They'd be free. And he could get back to figuring out a way to keep Buck forever.
*~ *~ *
Vin was moving faster and faster as he reached the end of the rock cover. Larabee had headed downwards, following some need that Vin didn't ask about. Safer not. He stopped at the ragged edge of the passageway, looking up into blue sky.
He wished he had someone with him. The feeling shook him; unnecessary, not normal, not safe. Larabee was a priest. Standish had rubbed him the wrong way with every comment; Josiah couldn't keep a thought straight with two steel rules and a plumb line; Jackson would glower and frown; JD would bounce and stumble over his own feet but there was an odd sort of reassurance in it all. Six of them, and the sum greater than its parts. If he'd been about to make a bad choice, even in the short time he'd known them, he'd already come to feel that one of them would call him on it.
Maybe it was just as well they weren't here then, he thought uncomfortably. The sooner he got himself together the better.
He looked cautiously around the corner of the rocks, taking it as easy as he could, moving up from cover slow, slow, slow. He half expected the top of his skull to get blown off before he got close enough to see anything worth the seeing, but nothing moved, nothing happened and he found himself staring out into the desert.
The sun was hot and heavy on his head, beating even through the weight of his hat, wishing for airco. Something buzzed overhead and he held still. No point moving. If they hadn't seen him, they needn't be alerted to his presence. Besides, not even he could lock onto a target moving that fast when his rifle was still at hip level. He reached up to his right shoulder and found the teat of his water bottle, sucked on it thirstily. The water was lukewarm and acrid, heat and time in a survival blister did it every time, and every time he was too grateful for the liquid to remember how much he hated the taste and he gulped it eagerly, then stopped himself. He didn't know when he'd get more, and even five liters in the back of his survival jacket wasn't going to do him much good if he drank it all in a day.
He closed the nozzle and sighed, eyes closed for a moment. He wished --
Well, that didn't matter. Hell, at least when he was fighting for his life he knew he was alive. And even if it came down to the Church bounty, well.
He shied away from the thought. He wouldn't go back. He didn't know what he could do about it, but he couldn't go back.
Maybe if Travis got down here soon enough, it'd be okay, he could just slip discreetly out of sight. He grinned faintly. Maybe he could sign up to be a fed too. Seemed like they were taking all sorts these days.
"Boo!" Someone whispered behind him, and he jerked, twisted and fired. To his everlasting relief, he didn't recognize whoever it was who had crept up on him, but behind him was another soldier, looking coldly at him over the end of a tangle rifle. Vin had automatically resighted. He rolled, keeping his eye on the target, firing rapidly. Shots trailed him, one searing at his hip, and he clenched his jaw, but there was no time to think and he was still moving, still firing, until the warning flicker of low charge in his weapon stopped him, and he lay gasping for breath, staring at the two dead cyborgs in full combat gear on the ground in front of him.
He forced himself to his knees first, and then automatically crawled over, checking first remotely and then directly for signs of life. Nothing. He'd killed them. Of course he'd killed them.
He stared for a long moment. He clenched his fists tightly, shuddering away the shame. They would have tried to kill him. They were the guys who'd been trying to kill these people. His friends. His kind.
His breath shuddered out again.
He'd let himself forget the smell of burnt flesh and voided bowels. Strange, the tricks even a trained mind could play. Especially a trained mind, the thought slid in.
He half laughed under his breath.
Maybe I could have changed their minds. He looked them over, wondering. I changed mine, he thought, quietly, deep down. I chose to walk away. You could have chosen too -- but they had made their own choices. Nothing that he could have done. Maybe if he'd been faster -- "Yeah, sure. Because a coupla mercs would have come along quiet if you'd'a just asked them to stop and consider the moral implications of what they were doing," he muttered.
He carefully turned the bodies, lifted half of the tags, and carefully unseated the black chips from each cybe's neck. The fed could rule if it had been a good kill or not.
He paused a moment, and then carefully checked them for water, rations and weapons. He looked at the little heap and frowned. He couldn't carry all of it, but he could probably square away the weapons and most the water. He shrugged, took what he could and dragged the rest, along with the bodies, into the shadows of the rocks and then dropped a survival blanket over it all, weighing the edges down with stones.
Maybe they'd've just shot him and left him for the scavengers, but he just couldn't. It might be a waste of time, but -- no.
He stepped back, and looked around, carefully.
Hello? Anyone?
He frowned. He didn't recognize the name that flashed up with the thread, but it was tagged for the Camp Hugo cybes.
He was about to answer, when he caught a tiny flicker in the link, like a line of fuzz where a watermark had been ripped, and he froze, cut the connection cold. Without another word he moved, heading swiftly away from where he'd been. A dark crack opened up to become a hollow passageway. He scanned it but saw no traps, hoped that he was right, trusted his instincts and kept going, eyes adjusting painfully rapidly to the dark. Something glittered at chest height and he froze, mentally comparing his map of the mountain and its traps with his path. That was probably monowire. Great. Caught by their own damn traps.
He turned to head back out, just as the gap in the wall darkened.
Gou shi!
He looked at the monowire, and then drew a deep breath and ducked low, stepping under it, one pace, no further. He stared into the darkness, quartering it over and over, then took a tiny step forwards, then another, and another. He didn't dare move any faster. He could walk straight through monowire and not know it until a limb fell off or his heart stopped, sliced through the center. His heart speeded up and he ruthlessly held his breathing steady, long, slow, easy breaths through his mouth, as silent as he could make them. A glimmer of light and he stepped over it, and half over, spotted another one, ducked, twisted, pivoted on one foot, and shuffled sideways with what felt like a horrendously noisy scraping sound. Something moved at the end of the crevice and he froze half crouched, one hand on the ground, listening intently. Nothing. He moved cautiously past the wire then dropped to his belly and wriggled forwards.
No one had thought to put the damn stuff horizontally across at floor level. If it had been him, he'd have had someone's badge for it, but as it was, he wasn't ungrateful. The web grew thicker, reaching to the ground but he found he could eel around it, sliding his torso and arms past, then pulling his legs up, not daring risking just dragging behind and trusting that they'd go where it was safe. Monowire didn't leave room for mistakes.
Footsteps followed him in, quick at first, then whoever it was stopped. There was a distant muttering, it tickled in his head and he absently set a decryption protocol on it, it probably wouldn't have any effect, but it was always worth trying...
The steps resumed, slower and much more careful. He wondered for a moment why they weren't using a light, then shook his head. They were already backlit by the daylight, they weren't going to give him additional targeting information.
Thinking of which. He slid a hand into one of his pockets and smiled as he armed a grenade by touch. He set the range, timer and triggered it, then gently rolled it back to the enemy position, counting carefully. It was wrapped in soft rubber, and was entirely noiseless even on the shale floor. -- seven light years, eight light years -- He moved quicker, grabbing a stone and waving it in front of him -- when the end sliced clean off he knew to shift around another strand of wire, and kept moving, --twelve light years, thirteen light years -- kept waving, moving deeper in and deeper until the countdown ended and he -- twenty light years! -- curled up tight, arms over his head, legs tucked up into his chest, face buried in his knees.
The grenade boomed, the flash brilliant even through his flesh and bone, rattling his teeth, and rocking him where he lay. He pushed more tightly into the rock, praying that the wire didn't come down on top of him -- still, if it was a choice between possible monowire slices and definite capture he was taking the possible injuries.
*~ *~ *
"Yes!" JD startled himself -- for hours he'd been barely speaking, using threads almost exclusively to talk, to Ezra, to the cybes, to the weapons and systems. His voice was loud and cracked in the middle, but he didn't much care. Ezra nodded at him, a crooked smile on his lips.
"Not bad, son," he agreed, and JD grinned at him, and rocked forwards from the hotseat. The harnesses and uplink tugged on him for a second then popped free at a single, irritated thought.
"We did it!" He stretched and wriggled, pulling out the kinks from hours of sitting almost motionless except for small movements of hands and eyes. Ezra said nothing, and JD paused to look at him. "Ezra?"
"We've cleared the skies, for now." He looked up at the tac screen. "The ground forces are making strong headway against our people." He traced out the lines with a finger, and JD felt his euphoria dribble away, leaving him cold and faintly nauseous.
"Where is everybody?" The hangar was deserted; he and Ezra were the only ones left.
"Holding the line, JD." Ezra said gently. A cluster of lights on the tac screen blinked out, and JD flinched.
"Who--"
"One of Zhou Yu's strike teams." His lips thinned, and he tapped the screen. It twisted and shifted around to show the level more clearly. "They've almost got through."
"What's this?" JD leaned forward, and touched at a dense cluster a scant two floors above the advancing troops, eight floors below the hangar.
Ezra frowned, "I don't--"
JD poked at it, and a data tag flipped up briefly. "Oh Jeshu." Horrified, he looked at Ezra, "It's the kids."
*~ *~ *
Vin kept still. Another breach in the mountain was pouring sunlight across the tunnel. He could see the monowire against the blaze of light, but it had killed his night vision and would backlight him beautifully for anyone following him. He slowly moved pebbles out of his escape route, stacking them to one side. He could wait here all day, and they knew it.
They weren't moving either.
He slowed his breathing further and further, his heart slowing with it. Slower. Slower.
It would take a while for the heat to dissipate out of his body, but if they didn't know better, he'd look, well, he'd look like a dead, cooling body. Backup systems would keep him alive without a perceptible heart beat for hours, nanites driving themselves and his blood, collecting oxygen despite the near halt of his breathing. If he had to he could go completely anaerobic, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Something itched at his thigh. A moment later the itch faded, suppressed by more nanites.
"Winged him, I reckon," someone muttered, and Vin didn't move at all. Yeah, you go right on thinking that, he thought to himself.
"Probably took himself out on his own grenade," the other said, and added, "You got a flame?"
Vin would have shaken his head if there wasn't a danger that he'd either accidentally slice it off or give himself away to the pair of them. Of the two possibilities, the monowire seemed rather more probable, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to get ripped apart just yet. If they'd been his soldiers he'd've reamed them out for sheer carelessness and wanton stupidity in the face of the enemy. He'd known captains who'd have killed them for being that noisy.
"Here." A soft click and a bright flame flickered then focused into a tight blue streak of hissing light. The light moved, held and then seared up in a long bright white line as the whole strand ignited. One strand of monowire gone. Maybe twenty or thirty to go? And if they thought he was dead they could take their time. Another line went, illuminating the cave to almost daylight brightness for a split second. Vin didn't have time to shut his eyes, and the shadow of the two mercenaries was burned onto his retinas. Full combat camo, no hints to capabilities, but they were cautious and smart enough to take the time to get rid of the monowire, even if they couldn't manage stealthy even with the camo.
He tried not to flinch as the crackle/sear of another line burned out. It must have been close enough to a sequence of lines that they went too, and for a couple of seconds, maybe as many as five or six, the cascade of combusting wire kept the cave brightly lit.
The two mercs were looking away, idiots. Anti-flare was built into camo for a reason; he felt no compunction at shooting them in the backs they were dumb enough to turn to him. They collapsed in place and Vin rolled carefully under the nearest wires, then pushed to his feet in the newly cleared area and sauntered over. He searched them swiftly, examining them for weapons and weak points.
The camo wasn't proof against him, and he sliced the first battle-comp in micro-seconds, and locked the joints in place. Try moving anywhere now, he smirked, and repeated the process on the second just as the stun wore off, judging by the muffled protests.
He took his time riffling through their equipment. There wasn't much he took -- a couple of generic recharge packs for their dna locked rifles, a dump of their blackboxes. The weapons were no good to him, but the charges would work fine in his guns. A couple of rat-packs -- he snapped one open and grinned at the Guild-issued candy, popping one in his mouth and sucking on it happily. Only Guild mercs seemed to understand how good these were. All the more for the cybes.
Vin could just about feel the glares from behind the tinted helmets. The joint-lockdown wouldn't kill them. Eventually, if they were smart enough they'd break it anyway. If they weren't of course, it was just another sort of long death, but hell, they hadn't cared when they thought he was dead. It meant they could see him, but couldn't do anything about him. A little dangerous, sure. It made him enemies, but it kept them alive, and there was no point killing unless he had to. Just plain wasteful.
It was the work of a minute to finished the job they had started. The wire burned into fine ash that floated down slow and soft and he padded silently through the now-safe cavern.
"No hard feelings," he called back softly. "I'll let the Guild know where you are." Eventually. Maybe. If I remember. If I'm still alive.
But he didn't need to depress them more than they were already.
*~ *~ *
Chris was sweating as he watched the two cyborgs stumbling away. He wiped the sweat away from his eyes and breathed carefully. They'd feel his doubt if he let them. Go on. Go. Think..
They didn't look back. Couldn't. He could just take his weapons and...
He closed his eyes for a long moment, torn between what he wanted and what was right.
And let them go.
He waited until they were well out of sight, and walked to the cave opening. The sunlight was good on his face, warm and somehow easing his rage, just a little. His hand slid into the pouch containing the download of Buck's personality, and he twisted it between his fingers, smiling faintly. He leaned against the edge of the cave wall, and looked out across the desert. The two small figures of the mind-bound cybes had long since disappeared from sight. He waited patiently, pulling a narcstick from his other pocket, and crushed the tip, ignoring the pain as it self-ignited. A moment later he took a long contented drag.
Well, maybe Buck would be pleased after all. Letting gou shi cyborgs go, unharmed. He knew Sarah would be. Mercy. He looked away, disgusted at himself. Sarah hadn't been granted mercy; Adam and Buck had been stripped of mercy's compassion. He waited for the usual turmoil to drag at him, but it didn't come. Instead, he held the small shard of memory gently, almost as peaceful as though he'd been given the man himself. Mercy.
Mercy.
"Where did you come from, old dog?" he murmured, and breathed the drugged smoke in deep. "Who did this to you?" Maybe Buck would even have the answers, once he found a way to access him.
His hand clenched around the splinterchip, then loosened as quickly. That would be the trick. Find a virtual environment; maybe get the kid to fix one up. He'd understand, maybe, a little. If he could he'd just download him direct, but it wasn't possible. He could see himself now, as much a junkie as the rest of the netheads, locked into a virtual world that was the only living he wanted. He didn't much care.
He closed his eyes, a bitter little smile on his lips. Give him back a bare third of what he was missing: a virtual entity, unable to do more than give an illusion of life. Shades and shadows haunted him yet, now, now, some would talk back under daylight hours, while he was still awake. And it was still burning at him, still urging him on, in, deeper, willing to take the virtual ghosts over a reality that cast only strangers' shadows.
Someone had a very cruel sense of humor.
He wondered if it was Josiah, or some other. Wondered whether if this were all he could have it would be worth it, if it would be bearable. Or if it would be worse than believing them dead, separated by the gap between soul and tech. To be so close--
He slid the chip away into the pouch and reached instead for one of the grenades hooked to his waistband, and strolled back up the path he'd come down. When he'd gone far enough he primed it, and chucked it over his shoulder, listening to it bounce noisily. One-one hundred, two-one hundred, three-one hundred and the mountainside groaned, shook. He kept walking, ignoring the way his coat-skirts flapped forwards, his hat dragging against its string. Dust stung at his eyes, fine fragments of rock blown upwards as the tunnel collapsed behind him.
Forget being nice. He considered the rest of the ways in, and nodded to himself. If they had to, they could close them all. Air vents, escape hatches, the lot.
If he didn't try, he'd never know.
Chris picked his way back up the mountain, sure of what he'd find. Even with his ears pricked for any sound, his mind reaching into the dark for any signs of life, he still was surprised when Vin slid out of the darkness . He held his startlement in, and when Vin said: "Nothing much up this way," nodded.
"Route down is closed and safe." He didn't offer details; didn't ask about the scuffs and dirt on Vin's face and clothes. Time to finish this.
*~ *~ *
Ezra ran down the stairs, two, three, five at a time. They were deep in the center of the mountain and no one stopped him, no one heard him. The only sounds were his feet ringing on the open metal of the treads, and his harsh breaths.
"Come on, Ezra," he gasped as a stitch stung at his side. He wanted to clutch at it; stop; catch his breath; think; go back; not die...
Instead he gripped his guns tighter and kept running. JD wasn't the only kid on his own.
*~ *~ *
Nathan had a gun in his hands, heavy and unfamiliar. His vibra blade would be for later, in close quarters, if they weren't all dead by then. Mareen and the children, some barely to his waist, stood waiting, armed with whatever they could improvise or find.
He looked at Mareen, who smiled at him, and pushed her shoulder against his arm.
If he'd had a free arm, he'd have hugged her with it.
Dull thumps filled the air, shaking the walls. They didn't shake the ground, and Nathan couldn't think what they were for the longest time, and then realized. "Battering rams."
She nodded. "Not close, though," she murmured, and they waited, eyes on the door.
*~ *~ *
There was a cyborg in the stairwell. A ragged strip of green around her arm, no combat gear, and Ezra took a chance. "Friend!"
"Prove it," the cybe snapped, and she reached for Ezra's weapons.
Ezra jerked away. "I've just come down from level one. They're going to break through to the infirmary."
The cybe glared at him, then nodded briefly. "Jenna."
"Ezra." Formalities seemed inappropriate in the here and now. Oh, how Maude would have wept for the collapse of the proprieties. He added that to the running list of things that made him happy, and said no more.
"Two floors more. You came down them stairn like a thousand head of cattle. 'Mazed no one heard you."
Ezra shrugged. "I was in a hurry. Now if you would be so kind--" he looked significantly a the stairs, and she held out a hand.
"You first, Ezra."
Ezra shook his head even as he started down the stairs, Jenna right behind him. "The lack of trust is painful."
"Not as painful as it could be," she mumbled and he ducked reflexively, the blow glanced off the top of his head instead of plowing squarely into it. "Lying bastard."
"I'm on your side!"
"Couldn't prove it, could you? Just wanted your cut of the kids."
"Strangely enough, no. You'd think I'd been better brought up than to display this sort of gross selflessness and altruism, but on the positive side, my late parent is almost certainly reaching several thousand rotations per minute even as we speak." He was still moving, backing away from her. At her blank look he added, "I want to help."
"By leading them to the children."
"No," he rolled his eyes, "by protecting the children and leading the mercenaries away from them."
She still looked suspicious, "Who are you working for?"
"No one! You! Tanner if you insist on it, and if that half breed is going to get out of paying full whack even if I'm dead he's got another think coming."
Jenna jumped the banisters and landed lightly on her feet behind him. He whipped around.
"For god's sake, ma'am--"
She looked at him, and he paused, waiting. Not anxiously. Perhaps, yes, a little warily, but that was understandable.
"If you do anything--"
"Yes, yes, you'll kill me, naturally, how could I ever have imagined otherwise? Now can we go?"
He stepped around her and they were at the landing between levels, the door in front of them marked with a huge greenish 8.
"Ready?"
A dull thump resounded in the distance, and Jenna nodded, and put her hand on the door handle.
"Let's go."
*~ *~ *
JD waited in the hangar. The power in the cannon would get off one more shot, but that would kill the shields. Meteors -- debris from the three killed ships -- were still ricocheting off of them in dazzling bursts of sparks and sound. Keeping the shields was more important than one last potshot. He knew that.
Which meant about all he had left was his personal weapons, and he held them, one in each hand, trying not to grip too hard, not to tighten up too much. He could be patient.
He amused himself by generating the illusion of enemies on the rocks above the hangar, and would have smiled as their fire diverted upwards. He played that game for a while, breathing hard at the effort of maintaining remote holograms, even ones that popped in and out as unpredictably as these. Someone must have caught on, and fire recommenced on the shield's stress points, but they'd wasted some of their precious firepower first.
How much more could they keep pouring on?
He ran the numbers, no different to the arena, he told himself, except the numbers said he'd die when they broke through in ten minutes. Shields were failing. No saved game; no second life. Game over.
His breath was kind of shaky, and he didn't think anyone would mind that what he wanted, really wanted, was to go find a nice quiet bunk and hide in it. Or have someone here. Just to not be alone right now. He --
He could see figures the other side of the shields, moving around at its edges, looking for a crack. Blinding light glared up, leaving spots on his retinas. Maybe another three of those, and the shield would be overwhelmed, the power unable to maintain integrity across the whole. It would collapse in minutes.
General warning, we're losing shields in five, the battle comp told him mildly, and he flinched. Ran the numbers again, and watched time slip away faster than the clock.
He took a deep breath. "People, shield's down in five standard minutes and counting." No response.
Vin? he whispered, and heard nothing. "Buck?"
His weapons slipped in his sweat-slick hands, and he carefully laid one down and wiped his palm on his pants leg, then picked it up and did the same with the other one.
This waiting game was hard. He carefully reached out, looking for one of the people he knew. No sign of anyone.
Zhou Yu? Josiah? Anyone?
He reached further, and caught the edge of something familiar...
Federale Dunne? I was told you were dead. Someone on a closed fed frequency!
JD jerked away from the contact, but the other didn't let go. Federale Dunne, this is Lieutenant Jefferson of the Federated Alliance Carrier Pentecost. Federale Dunne, this is a secured line, please respond.
JD hesitated, then reached back. Um. Hi?
*~ *~ *
Halloran stumbled back into camp supporting Anderson. Or maybe it was the other way around. They were both covered in blood, looked like they'd been cut up and chucked off the mountainside. Watch called in help as soon as he had a definite ID, but quietly.
He eased Anderson's weight from Halloran's shoulders and lowered her to the ground. "What the 'ing hell happened to you boys?" he asked, fumbling for his emergency med kit.
"Priest," Halloran said hoarsely. He was bent forward, his fists clenched, eyes squinted shut against pain. "That blighted fucking priest."
"Hal?" Ngede walked up, the camp doctor right behind him.
"Prioritize Andy, she's gonna need some help moving." He met Ngede's eyes, and a moment later Ngede nodded.
"We'll move this somewhere more private." He put a discreet hand under Halloran's elbow and turned him towards the ops tents. Watch knew what that meant -- they would debrief privately before going to Apman. He frowned a little and Ngede's head turned sharply towards him. "Stevens?"
Joe Stevens saluted crisply, and took up position. "Sir?"
Ngede smiled thinly. "Good man."
Watch didn't reply, but kept looking out towards the dust cloud surrounding the mountain. Guild looked after its own.
*~ *~ *
"We should never have taken that damn contract."
"Hal--" Ngede said warningly.
Halloran pulled away from the medic running a TR over his skin, leaning up on his elbow to nail Ngede with a hard look. "I'm serious, Jack. Those are free cybes. Kids. They've got free kids in there. They've got a doc who births 'em, a whole infirmary for them. We shouldn't have taken the damn job."
"But we did." He shrugged, as if to say, and that's all we can do, when Halloran knew better. But gently, carefully--
"Cap--" Anderson was holding a wad of gauze over her side. There had to be something there to repair in the first place, and the tissue repairer had been next to useless. The skin tearing had been so extensive that they'd have to try again over the next several days, maybe even weeks to get her fully back to strength. She licked at her dry lips, and looked sidelong at Ngede and then away again. "Cap, you know we could--"
"Anderson!" Halloran snapped, making the name into an order for silence. she ignored it.
"Cap, Sarge, you know -- he killed Colonel Corcoran; he killed Ops, dammit, how many more of us does he have to murder before you get us out of here?"
"Anderson, you're not well."
"I know what I'm saying, sir! And I might be shot and drugged up but I still know that he isn't right in the head. He's the one who broke our contract; he's just going to keep on until we're all dead unless you stop him. Please. You have a duty to us, sir. Company's gotta survive." She subsided, pale and sweating, her hands gripping tightly at her side. Ngede shook his head, and tugged the blanket up from the foot of the cot over her. She just looked at him mutely, her strength spent.
"We'll speak in the morning, Corporal." He stepped towards the exit and paused but didn't turn as she spoke again, her voice faded almost out of existence.
"Break it, sir. Please. Break the damn contract."
"Night, Andy," Halloran said softly, and followed the captain out of the medtent.
"You said you met a priest down there?" Ngede asked.
"Yeah. Priest inquisitor. Name of Larabee."
Ngede nodded barely perceptibly and they walked on in silence. It took a couple of minutes to realize that they were pacing something that wasn't quite a perimeter, but was close to the fences. A few moments of observation told him that they were more or less out of sight of any watchers, that the only things out here were the desert and the security cameras. Somehow he didn't doubt for a second that whoever was on the other end of those was Ngede's man through and through.
"Did he go in?" In to your head, he meant.
The euphemism didn't make the thought any more easy to stomach. "Could be," Halloran said cautiously. "Maybe. I don't think so, but the way I heard it, he was one of the best. I don't know that I'd know."
He chanced a look at the man walking beside him, and saw the fleeting grimace. Well. Better to be honest. Probably. He didn't looked at Ngede's hands. He'd never see it anyway. Best to trust that he was saner than Apman.
"You think you've been compromised?"
He nodded curtly, "Think it's best to work on that assumption."
Captain Ngede just shook his head slowly, and Halloran swallowed back any other response. He hadn't been ripped, even if he had been read. He had a functioning brain, and as far as he knew, was still his own man. But he was out of the fight, as surely as Andy with her torn up gut.
"She's right," he said abruptly. "We've got it all chipped down. The Guild's only question will be why we waited so long."
Ngede's lips twisted in a cynical smile, "And to sue OIC for endangerment not contractually covered."
"That goes on Frances' shoulders." He carefully didn't look up, kept his face expressionless. Frances had been a good company commander. Not flawless, but smart. The only reason they'd survived Apman this long was her. Scapegoating her seemed disloyal. And yet, if she'd been one thing, it was pragmatic. "She would've taken it if she was alive. Whatever gets the kids out safe."
Ngede made no reply, but something eased in his body language, and they kept walking the perimeter, the silence easy between them.
Part Seven
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fandoms listed herein. I am certainly making no money off of these creative fan tributes to a wonderful, fun show.